So many today are struggling. As I make that statement, I perceive in the world and people around me, that there are a lot of people struggling their way through life. I see people who are worried about their daily provision and daily needs struggling from one meal to the next. On nearly any major corner near the Highways in the city, we will observe those who are homeless (some truthfully, others, portraying themselves as such to take advantage of others’ charity). On the nightly news broadcasts, it seems there is no shortage of troubled youth either hurting themselves or those around them. Wars rage, people struggle and scrape and fight. Why? Why do so many feel hopeless? Why are our youth hopeless?
Many point at these problems and blame. We blame others for their lack of empathy and compassion. We blame the government as though they can provide for the emotion and spiritual needs of a city, state, or nation. We look to science and academia for learning, comprehension, and therapies which will alleviate the problems of our day. When it is all over, what can any of these do for the troubled spirit and the vexations of the heart?
Men are inadequate to provide for physical needs (we would and could have nothing of physical sustainment were it not by God’s will). We lack the understanding to deal with many mental struggles
(what do we really understand about the human mind, consciousness, and conscience). Spiritually, so many are turned off or struggling to find fulfillment. I would submit to you though, that we need to point
more hearts to God in order to overcome all of these troubles.
God created the universe, the earth, and all that are within them. The mind and power which could speak such things into existence is certainly capable to make provision for our daily physical needs. He does so by providing what is needful for us. Our health, our strength, our abilities (all of these we use in gathering, hunting, or earning that which provides for our table and our hearth). Jesus taught this very concept among the topics highlighted in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:25-32) where He concludes: [Mat 6:33-34 NKJV] 33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day [is] its own trouble.
From physical worries to family strife, discontentment, and rage, emotionally the world is struggling. Science and medicine have proposed any number of drugs which treat the hormones and treat our minds, but so many of these are numbing agents. They treat the pain and mask the true cause. (I’m not proposing that you get off treatments prescribed by your doctors or telling you that such therapies have no place). What I would propose is that so many therapies and treatments for emotional distresses are necessary because we largely misplace our trust and are looking for answers in all the wrong places. People have elevated learning, science, government, self all to a position of gods.
God created us in His image, giving us authority over His creation (Gen 1:26). However, instead of serving God, we often serve ourselves, as seen in the ancient world by men building of the Tower of Babel and observed today through many modern projects. We need to ask ourselves what idols we have put in high places. Much of our emotional turmoil comes from serving the wrong things. As Christians, we should lead the world to the one solution for peace: Jesus. His love meets our emotional needs, and when we
prioritize God in our lives, it addresses our inadequacies.
Spiritually, we were made to worship, honor, and praise Him. Yet God did not desire to make robots which honor him. He gave us a free will and wants us to want to serve Him. He has given us a season of walking upon this earth and the choices that we make here will determine for us what our eternity will look like. This is the missing piece in our world today. Go examine Paul’s observation of man through the ages in Romans chapter 1. There you will find that men were allowed to be deceived, because that was what men wanted. Men didn’t want to retain God in their thoughts or in their memories, or in their service. Many think that they worship nothing. There is no god and they do not serve any master. All of that is a lie. They simply don’t perceive.
We were made to worship and created for serving God. When we choose to not do that for which we were made, we quickly get things off balance and out of whack. Men serve themselves. Men worship learning and thought. Men depend on government for their very existence. In all of this, men are placing above God those things and institutions which God created, and they serve without true understanding. It is a blind world, groping in the darkness of sin. That is why the Gospel and the message of Salvation in Jesus is so important.
Jesus is the manifestation of God’s love for his prized creation. Jesus came to save a world that is already dead. [Jhn 3:16-18 NKJV] 16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Jesus loved us and gave His own life for us. This should cause us to look to Him for everything, trust in Him because He is God and He has provided for us richly. [Jhn 15:10 NKJV] 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Our misplaced devotions and love have brought all manner of problems into this world. Let us restore God to the place He deserves and live not for ourselves and that which is created but live to serve God because He alone is God. Revive men’s hearts by pointing them to God and to His service.